1954 : did Petrov matter?

Occurring well into the Cold War years, the ‘Petrov’ election of 1954 demonstrates, even more than most elections, the peril of hindsight. We tend to see its significance as arising out of the tumultuous circumstances surrounding the announcement of Prime Minister Menzies, on 13 April 1954 – just as Parliament was to rise for the election campaign – that the Third Secretary at the Soviet Embassy, Vladimir Petrov, had defected. But this Cold War script was not played to the gallery, due in part to Menzies’ gag on Petrov talk during the campaign (albeit an order not universally observed). The greatest significance of the return of the Liberal-Country Party coalition on 29 May 1954 is not as an affirmation of repressive anti-communism, but as an example of the mundane expectations of Australians. Voters are revealed as wishing to tend the first green shoots of post-war recovery, rather than engage in an ‘all-in’ effort against the Red menace. In a year typified as quintessentially ‘Cold War’, the final result – a swing to the Australian Labor Party, but not sufficient to oust the coalition – illustrates the tendency of the electorate at this time to pull towards the centre, rather than decisively towards left or right. The 1954 election is a reminder of one of the things Australian voters commonly prize about their governments: the promise of stability in the midst of high drama.